A variety of different types of messaging systems are currently in wide use. Some such messaging systems include, for instance, electronic mail (e-mail) systems, instant messaging systems, communication systems within social networking systems, among others.
In such messaging systems, it is common for users to send attachments (or links to attachments) to one another. In social network systems, users can make attachments or objects available to one another in various groups. The attachments are often provided as a link to an object, such as a document, a picture, a directory, a folder, etc. The objects are stored at a given location. Because a wide variety of different users tend to send one another a wide variety of different types of attachments, the attachments can be located in a wide variety of different locations, and they can be provided by a variety of different data providers.
This can present some challenges. For instance, different data providers often provide data in different structures, formats, or according to different schemas. For a given client to obtain access to data from multiple different providers, the client normally downloads a separate client application for each provider. When the client wishes to obtain data from a given provider, it uses the client application associated with that provider.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.